In the summer of 1999, a single peak in the stark, desolate wilderness of the Siachen Glacier became the battleground between India and Pakistan. As conflict engulfed the Kargil sector, intelligence revealed activity atop Point 5770—a strategic peak from
which one could command the southern part of the glacier. The Pakistan Army had established Bilal Post and reclaiming it was both imperative and daunting.
In 1999: The Battle for the Heights of Point 5770, Lieutenant General Konsam Himalay Singh and Shiv Kunal Verma retell a gripping episode of the Kargil War when the soldiers of 27 Rajput battalion led by Major Navdeep Singh Cheema climbed the perilous mountain peak to launch an attack on the enemy. This is a riveting account of courage, leadership, and a hard-won victory in extreme conditions.
Lieutenant General (Dr) Konsam Himalay Singh, the first three-star general from Northeast India, is a former chairman of the State Public Service Commission. A mountaineer, author, and scholar, he now teaches National Security Studies and works actively in peace-building initiatives in Manipur, blending field experience with academic and human insight.
Born into an army family (his father, Major General Verma, was a captain with 2 Rajput in 1962), film-maker and military historian Shiv Kunal Verma has worked with all three arms of the Indian armed forces over the last two and a half decades. From flying extensively with the IAF while making Salt of the Earth and Aakash Yodha to the filming of the Naval Dimension and the Kargil War, Verma has had a ringside view of matters military. His film on the National Defence Academy—The Standard Bearers—is considered a classic. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Northeast Trilogy (that documented the entire region
and its peoples) and The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why. His acclaimed works include 1962: The War That Wasn’t and 1965: A Western Sunrise.